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The Taipan galaxy survey (hereafter simply ‘Taipan’) is a multi-object spectroscopic survey starting in 2017 that will cover 2π steradians over the southern sky (δ ≲ 10°, |b| ≳ 10°), and obtain optical spectra for about two million galaxies out to z < 0.4. Taipan will use the newly refurbished 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory with the new TAIPAN instrument, which includes an innovative ‘Starbugs’ positioning system capable of rapidly and simultaneously deploying up to 150 spectroscopic fibres (and up to 300 with a proposed upgrade) over the 6° diameter focal plane, and a purpose-built spectrograph operating in the range from 370 to 870 nm with resolving power R ≳ 2000. The main scientific goals of Taipan are (i) to measure the distance scale of the Universe (primarily governed by the local expansion rate, H0) to 1% precision, and the growth rate of structure to 5%; (ii) to make the most extensive map yet constructed of the total mass distribution and motions in the local Universe, using peculiar velocities based on improved Fundamental Plane distances, which will enable sensitive tests of gravitational physics; and (iii) to deliver a legacy sample of low-redshift galaxies as a unique laboratory for studying galaxy evolution as a function of dark matter halo and stellar mass and environment. The final survey, which will be completed within 5 yrs, will consist of a complete magnitude-limited sample (i ⩽ 17) of about 1.2 × 106 galaxies supplemented by an extension to higher redshifts and fainter magnitudes (i ⩽ 18.1) of a luminous red galaxy sample of about 0.8 × 106 galaxies. Observations and data processing will be carried out remotely and in a fully automated way, using a purpose-built automated ‘virtual observer’ software and an automated data reduction pipeline. The Taipan survey is deliberately designed to maximise its legacy value by complementing and enhancing current and planned surveys of the southern sky at wavelengths from the optical to the radio; it will become the primary redshift and optical spectroscopic reference catalogue for the local extragalactic Universe in the southern sky for the coming decade.

The eight dominant culturable members of an Antarctic fellfield soil bacterial community were four Arthrobacter species, Sanguibacter suarezii, Aureobacterium testaceum, a Bacillus sp., and a Pseudomonas sp.. All of the isolates grew at 2°C, but two of the Arthrobacter spp. were psychrophilic, while the other six bacterial species were psychrotolerant. However, the fastest growing organisms at low temperatures were not the psychrophiles, and the psychrotolerant Bacillus sp. grew fastest at temperatures up to 25°C. When the growth temperature of cultures was altered, the phospholipid content of the two psychrophilic Arthrobacter spp. decreased, whereas the phospholipid contents of the psychrotolerant spp. either increased or did not change. Only one psychrophilic and one psychrotolerant Arthrobacter sp. modified its polar lipid head-group composition in response to a lowering of growth temperature. The change in Arthrobacter sp. CL2-1 was particularly marked and novel in that at low temperatures phosphatidylethanolamine was replaced completely by a phosphoglycolipid and phosphatidylserine, neither of which was present at higher growth temperatures. All eight isolates altered the fatty acyl compositions of their membrane lipids in a manner that was only partially dependent on taxonomic status. In Bacillus sp. C2-1 the changes were opposite to that predicted on the basis of membrane fluidity considerations. The isolates used different combinations of changes in fatty acid branching, unsaturation and chain length. There was no single strategy of thermal adaptation that was employed and the variety of strategies used did not follow phylogenetic boundaries.

We have analyzed archival X-ray spectra of the RS CVn binary system HR 1099 in an attempt to see if we can obtain a consistent picture of the state of the X-ray emitting plasma. We have modeled six spectra obtained by the Exosat ME and LE telescopes, two spectra obtained by the Einstein SSS and MPC instruments, as well as a more recent ROSAT PSPC spectrum. We find that these spectra are in general poorly fitted by solar-abundance Raymond and Smith or Mewe and Kaastra thermal plasma models, and that no simple combination of these models significantly improves these fits: the observed continuum is too strong relative to the line features. We find acceptable fits for thermal models with two or more components in which the heavy elements are depleted by a factor of 2 to 4 relative to their solar photospheric values. These results are consistent with those obtained from the analysis of higher-resolution EUVE and ASCA spectra of active binary and single stars. We discuss the implications of these findings on ongoing analyses of the EUV spectra of HR 1099 and other RS CVn binaries.

For some time philosophers have thought of epistemology and metaphysics as different branches of philosophy, investigating, respectively, what can be known and the basic properties and nature of what there is. It is hard, though, to see any genuine boundary here. The issues irresistibly overlap. Certainly in Plato there is no such divide. His views about what there is are largely controlled by ideas about how knowledge can be accounted for, and his thinking about what knowledge is takes its character from convictions about what there is that is knowable. As a result his doctrines have a different shape from characteristically modern ones.

Some earlier Platonic writings do have a somewhat modern look. Socrates was notorious for having questioned whether he knew much of anything, and for making people hesitant about their opinions (Meno 80c, 86b-c). c). Plato exploits this side of Socratic thought.
The namesake of the Euthyphro judges that an action of his is pious.
Socrates wonders whether Euthyphro ought to be confident about
that judgment, and tries to make him less so. Elsewhere Socrates
raises questions concerning his own judgments about which things
are beautiful (H. Ma. 286c). Such questions seem to suggest a general
policy of doubting, reminiscent to us of Descartes or of the various
programs of ancient skepticism. In Socrates' efforts to overcome
ignorance (Meno 86b-c) we might see a project of justifying beliefs
like that of typical contemporary epistemologists.

Sidgwick believed that there are three main differences between Greek ethics and modern ethics. First, he said that in modern ethics the “imperative” or “jural” or “quasi-jural” notions of obligation, duty, and right are central and the focus is on the question, “What is duty and what is its ground?” In ancient ethics, he said, this question is not asked. Instead, it is asked, “Which of the objects that men think good is truly good or the highest good?” And the “attractive” notion of good is central (ME, 106).

Sidgwick's second difference is this: “It was assumed on all sides [by Greek writers on ethics] that a rational individual would make the pursuit of his own good his supreme aim” (ME, 91–2). The modern view, however, can regard it as rational to take as an ultimate aim something different from and even possibly incompatible with one's own good, namely, right or duty or (in one sense) virtue.

Sidgwick thought that this feature of the ancient view, its acceptance of what I shall call “rational egoism,” is compatible with saying that ancient accounts of conduct are “moralities.” On some taxonomies a view does not count as a morality if it either says or is supported by a rationale that says that one's own good is one's ultimate rational end. A taxonomy of this kind holds that such a view is too much like a kind of egoism to be called a morality.

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